My teens watch a lot of YouTube also. We have a few shows we like to watch as a family on the “big TV” that are all on streaming services. And the big TV is where all the game systems are connected. But no one uses the big TV for individual viewing; that is all on computers or phones.
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Hope you and your family feel better soon. I was sick for 10 days after xmas (not sure if it was the flu or a bad cold - not covid) and it knocked me out.
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Like that creepy mom in the book Love You Forever?
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I am very nostalgic about the days where we all would never make conflicting plans and absolutely had to be home to find out “who shot JR?” I am sad that these kids will never know the joy of piling up in front of the common room TV to watch 90210.
(This is my #1 resentment towards the internet)
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I know friends who monitor this based on some tools that will disable internet after x amount of time per device. We have never done that. It has been trust based and he knows that if he breaks the trust there will be consequences. He in general good at following rules. If he wants to watch/play when he is not supposed he asks and even texts us before he does.
Same here no laptop in bedroom. He does use ipad to read in his room sometimes but no headphones allowed if he reading and in the room.
Sorry to hear that. Hope all of you feel better soon
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I could tell you that Eight is Enough and Charlie’s Angels were on Wed night and Love Boat and Fantasy Island on Saturday. I think Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were Tuesday?? Life in the 70’s.
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And, then, after college (for me) Seinfeld and Friends on Thursdays - and ER.
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West Wing for me. I rewatch the entire series every few years.
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So sorry you’re ill! You’re having the exact same experience we had over Xmas–prior flu shots and all. It was bad, but lying around doing nothing worked after a few days. Hope you feel better soon.
Our family has basically recreated the streaming version of this by watching the weekly Star Wars TV series episodes every week together when they get released on Disney+. Or like this evening when we watched the latest Percy Jackson episode together on Disney+. It’s been really nice.
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We try sometimes. We were able to do it a bit during Covid, and sometimes we manage in the summer. Truth is that their schedule is way more demanding than ours ever was, or maybe school is harder? They get home, eat, and it’s off to homework in each of their rooms.
At least we have one who manages to sit down for Jeopardy about 50% of the time and I love that my 3 will find time to watch stuff together when they are all home.
When they were little I didn’t have much of a screen time rule, but I had an isolation rule. If they wanted to watch TV they had to negotiate and do so on the big TV. If they wanted video games, no problem, but had to be on the Xbox.
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To be honest, we have been the sort of parents other parents hate having among their kids’ friends’ parents, because we have been practitioners of an early earned ramp to self-regulation.
Basically, our deal is if you are doing well in classes, and staying active and committed in a good range of activities, and staying healthy and physically safe, we’ll keep letting you make more and more decisions yourself about exactly how (and where) you spend your time. But if things start slipping, we will reassert more supervision until you re-earn it.
And sometimes for a while we had to dial back up for a bit, but mostly our kids have happily taken the opportunity to earn more freedom, and have ended up with a lot less active supervision than most of their friends soon enough.
We used to watch more things together, but now it is very seldom (although D30 and I are watching Percy Jackson, after having read the books together–which was round two for me). But family game sessions remain popular with the kids, so that is nice.
Edit: Oh, and we do longish trips together, which I love. But even then, we have let S24 decide more and more whether he wants to opt out of doing something on a given day and just chill, or do his own thing sometimes–like, he went and met a friend in London for lunch, that sort of thing. D30 is still up for whatever adventures we are doing, but that may change at some point, and that will be OK.
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That, we do. And we love it. Family road trips. Everyone’s favorite so far was a loop around Scotland.
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Random aside, but there was a point where S24 was getting burned out on the annual family trip. One of our favorite stories about him was we were standing outside of a quite lovely basilica when he was ten, and he proclaimed, “Eh, I’ve seen better.” Which he had, but you are not supposed to say it! And not that loudly!!
A couple years later he sat down just inside a castle in Wales, admittedly not remotely the first that trip, and informed us he was not interested in seeing “just another pile of rocks.”
But then because of COVID and other reasons we basically took off two years from these trips, and he found he really missed them! I do think he got some clarity on what worked for him and what didn’t (not too many churches, not too many castles, more down time, and so on). But he missed the break from the normal routine, the restaurants, learning some history and some of the more unique experiences, and so on.
And frankly, slowing down the pace and actually just enjoying being somewhere has really worked out for us too. Definitely then a nice way to have learned and grown together.
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I think that is why Scotland was so great. There always a good mix of museums, new towns, and hikes.
In our case, it helps that the 3 kids have only have a 3 year spread. They are very close and keep each other quite entertained. I was really grateful they had each other for company during the worse of the pandemic.
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Yeah, our two are like 5.5 years apart, so not so much with the entertaining each other. More just each has a different perspective on how the other one is ruining their childhood . . . .
Although actually, they will both admit sometimes they know they will be lifelong friends and supporters. Just not directly to each other, not yet.
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Of course, just stand on a ladder and look through his window. Eventually when you are old and dying, he’ll rock you to sleep!
Just kidding. I am sure that you aren’t creepy. I did not like that book, but one of my kids liked it so much as a preschooler (toddler? don’t remember) that I resorted to hiding it under the sofa in our living room because I just couldn’t stand to keep on read it aloud over and over again.
Did anyone hear the U of Chicago online session about what not to write in an essay? One example was a student who talked about why they wanted to be a hermit, and another was about how much their grandmother annoyed them.
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